Yankees, CC Sabathia fall to Rays, 5-1

Yankees relief pitcher Alfredo Aceves delivers in the fifth inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium on Sunday.

NEW YORK — The convergence of Jacoby Ellsbury, the baseball and the outfield wall played out like dramatic theater.

Wil Myers drove a CC Sabathia change-up deep to center, thinking it was gone. Ellsbury gave chase, convinced he could catch it.

And Sabathia watched from the mound, desperately hoping he would.

The collision that followed would doom yet another poor Sabathia outing Sunday afternoon in the Yankees’ 5-1, rubber-game loss to the Tampa Bay Rays.

The ball hit the top of the wall a split-second before Ellsbury did. It then caromed off the falling center fielder and rolled along the warning track to the late-reacting Carlos Beltran in right.

But Myers’ three-run, inside-the-park homer in the third inning was not rock bottom for Sabathia. That came an inning later, when the 33-year-old left-hander was booed off the mound by an angry chorus of 41,122 fans at the Stadium and into an uncertain future.

He lasted only 3ª innings — his shortest outing since October 2009 — while yielding five runs and 10 hits. Suddenly a vulnerable Yankee starting five looks to be in utter meltdown.

“I would have booed myself today too,” Sabathia said. “I wouldn’t want to come to the ballpark and watch that.”

He later added: “Going through this adversity has been the toughest part of my baseball career by far. But I know I’ll come out of this and be a better pitcher for it.”

The Yankees (16-14, 3-5 on the homestand) cannot afford to wait long for Sabathia (3-4, 5.75 ERA — the third highest in the majors).

They already have suffered devastating blows in losing Ivan Nova for the year and Michael Pineda (strained back muscle) for three to four weeks. And Hiroki Kuroda, 39, continues to struggle.

But Sabathia’s issues may be the most troubling. If his days as an effective starter are over, the Yankees have a very big problem, considering his importance in the rotation and the $48 million they owe him through 2016. It could balloon to $73 million through 2017 if he stays healthy.

Sabathia has struggled since undergoing elbow surgery before the 2013 season. The left-hander is 17-17 with a 4.94 ERA since the start of 2013, despite maintaining he is “100 percent” healthy.

He long ago acknowledged he lost the velocity that made him one of baseball’s best hurlers. And his transformation into a control-centric, keep hitters-off-balance pitcher armed with a sinker, 88-90 mph four-seamer and guile has been rocky at best.

“I was surprised to see today,” manager Joe Girardi said. “I still think he’s evolving as a different type of pitcher. But today he just didn’t have his normal stuff.”

Pitching coach Larry Rothschild knew Sabathia had a problem in the game’s first at-bat.

“Even the first two pitches you could see it,” he said. “He didn’t warm up particularly well. I was watching to see what we could do. But there wasn’t much.”

The only option the Yankees have to replace Sabathia comes in the reliever who followed him on the mound Sunday — Alfredo Aceves. He threw 5¤ scoreless innings of relief. But Girardi said Aceves will remain in the bullpen for now.

Sabathia once again was undone by a big inning. But he did not have help from his defense — or himself — thanks to a lack of hustle.
Beltran failed to back up Ellsbury on Myers’ homer, turning a potential double into disaster.

“Sometimes you just get caught up watching the play. It happened to me,” Beltran said.

Sabathia failed to cover first base on a potential inning-ending double play grounder by Evan Longoria in the fourth. Myers (four RBI) made him pay with an RBI double in the next at-bat.

“No excuse,” Sabathia said. “I just wasn’t over there to cover the base.”

But he did have little offensive support.

One day after the Yankees scored nine runs, Rays starter Erik Bedard (1-1) held them to only one run and six hits in six innings.

No matter the support, Sabathia knows this simply is not good enough.

“Of course. I know how good I need to be for us to have success and us to win,” he said. “I like that pressure. I’ll come out of this and be that guy that we need.”